Canadian Home Sales Crash In June

The Canadian Real Estate Association says home sales in June posted their largest monthly drop since 2010, with the Greater Toronto market leading the decline.

This is the third monthly decline in a row…

Under the covers, it’s Toronto that is suffering the most…

Toronto existing home sales drop 37.7% y/y

Average Toronto existing home price fell 5.8% m/m

Average Toronto existing home price up 6.3% y/y

Vancouver existing home sales drop 12.2% y/y

Average Vancouver existing home price fell 3.2% m/m

Average Vancouver existing home price up 2.7% y/y

And as a reminder, there appears to be plenty of room for this to fall further…

Looking at the chart above, last month Bloomberg said:

On a real basis, Canadian housing prices experienced a much smaller, shorter decrease in prices during the financial crisis and a much larger, longer increase in prices during the recovery. When you couple this unfathomable rise in housing prices with near-record high household debt-to-income ratios, the Canadian housing bubble starts to look scary should the tide turn.

… and added:

No one knows when insanity like this will come to an end. Bubbles are like an avalanche. The longer they build up, the worse they will be when they eventually destabilize.

Well, nobody may know, but as Harley Bassman said yesterday, one can make an educated assumption, and as he said it most likely will be the result of higher rates… which reminds us of last week’s decision by the Bank of Canada to hike its rates for only the first time since 2010.

And as US homebuyers from the time period 2004-2006 remember all too vividly, there is nothing that will burst a housing bubble faster than a spike in mortgage rates.

Which is why while Torsten Slok’s original warning that “Canada Is In Serious Trouble” two years ago may have been premature, this time it appears all too real thanks to none other than the Canadian central bank, which may just have done the one thing that will finally burst the country’s gargantuan housing bubble.

Finally, for those skeptical, here is David Rosenberg explaining why he is ‘skeptical’ about BoC’s view of a robust economy ahead…